Republicans Should Not Play Nice on Judicial Nominations

No, it was not a headline from the satirical newspaper, The Onion. It was just the latest scorn by President Obama toward conservatives everywhere, and conservative women in particular. The President has seriously nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Stephen Six, whose prints are all over the obstruction of justice in an investigation of an alleged systematic statutory rape cover-up at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas.

The people of Kansas know Steven Six well. Radical pro-abortion advocate Kathleen Sebelius, former Kansas Governor and now Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services , handpicked Six to continue the work of discredited Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison. In his short time in office, Morrison had used all his power to thwart the investigation done by former Attorney General Phill Kline against the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic which he discovered was not reporting incidents of statutory rape to the proper authorities as required by law, among other things.

Despite the fact that District Court Judge James Vano found probable cause for a trial from the evidence he reviewed (charging Planned Parenthood with 107 criminal acts, including 23 felonies by falsifying medical records), Sebelius, Morrison, and Six did everything they could to protect Planned Parenthood and demonize Kline. Six actually came into office after Morrison had to resign because of allegations that he used his extramarital relationship with a former employee, who at the time worked for Klein, to sabotage Klein’s investigation.

Again, this is not an episode of Jersey Shore, these are real life events.

Six continued the efforts to stop the investigation of Planned Parenthood, ignoring the young women that were abused through the alleged cover-up. When Klein subpoenaed the judge who had seen the Planned Parenthood records to testify, Six secretly obtained an order from the Kansas Supreme Court to censor him and prevent him from testifying. The Supreme Court eventually reversed itself after Klein appealed, but Six’s trickery worked, as Klein was out of office by the time the issue was resolved. And with Klein gone, the investigation, of course, went nowhere.

They sent the message loud and clear for anyone else with even a minute inclination to pursue justice for the abused young women: “You’d better not come after our abortion clinics, no matter what they have done.”

These events prompted 90 members of the Kansas Senate and House of Representatives to demand an investigation recently. Six got the boot as soon as Kansans had the opportunity to vote on retaining him.

This surprised no one except for President Obama, apparently. According to him, Mr. Six should be rewarded for his heroic advocacy work on behalf of Planned Parenthood in his position as Kansas Attorney General. The President actually wants us to believe Six deserves, and is the best candidate for, a promotion to a lifetime appointment to the Tenth Circuit!

President Obama already promoted Sebelius to a position where she can oversee the millions in federal funds flowing to Planned Parenthood. So we should probably expect the nomination of Morrison next. Who knows? Maybe he’ll head the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women.

This is what Republicans get for actually playing along with the liberal cry for faster confirmation of judicial nominees. From The New York Times to The Washington Post, the liberal media has been whining about the rate of confirmations for months now. That’s the real outrage to them: “Not enough judges are being confirmed!” Forget about the nominees’ judicial philosophy. “It doesn’t matter if the judge is an apologist for sexual sadists; he was rated ‘unanimously well qualified’ by the American Bar Association,” (see Robert Chatigny). “These are nominees with mainstream views,” they say.

Right. …

But Republicans have played along. Even after a major conservative victory in the last election, the 112th Congress, led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), responded by moving judicial nominations along at a steady pace. A comparison of the same period between President Obama and President Bush (February-March of their third year in office) shows an almost identical number of confirmations (13-14).

That gesture of goodwill, though, has been met with disdain by the President and Senate Democrats. The nomination of Mr. Six is proof of that.

So Republican Senators should stop playing “nice” on judicial nominations. Unlike Democrats, who opposed President Bush’s nominees because of their race (see Miguel Estrada), Republicans have been fairly tame in dealing with the steady stream of radical political operatives and ideologues the President has sent them.

From judges who believe that praying in the name of Jesus violates the Constitution, but praying in the name of Allah is okay (David Hamilton), to believing a Latino judge makes better decisions than white judges (Sonia Sotomayor), to believing using filters to protect children from obscene materials in public libraries violates “freedom of speech” (Edward Chen), to believing judges should create a constitutional right to welfare (Goodwin Liu), to supporting the rationing of medical services by ranks (Caitlin Halligan), to selecting judges because they are homosexuals (J. Paul Oetken), we have seen it all.

Republicans have plenty of reasons to say “enough is enough!” And they should.

We know the liberal media will mount a strong campaign against their “politicization of the judiciary.” Senators Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) will probably be weeping and whining to every talk show they can find. But informed Americans – “We the People” – will see right through the fade to the two Neros playing their violins while justice burns.